This is a short and sweet blog post to reflect on the last few weeks. Well, it’s nearer a couple of months actually. OK, enough of the internal arguments about time, let’s get on with the post.
As a reviewer I pride myself on being able to listen to, support and review independent artists in particular. Recently, however, my reviewing has slowed to a trickle due to the sheer mental and physical fatigue I am suffering. This is work related, or ‘real life’ related as it is often expressed by people on social media. Now, that doesn’t make me unusual, but what it has done is to remove one of my most fulfilling outlets on the internet. It is not just about being unable to review the tracks, it is being too tired to even listen to them. That is completely new to me.
When I was younger and I was fatigued I would just listen to music until I felt better. I noticed the change in my listening habits in the last few weeks, and wondered why that was. I came to the conclusion that I am now programmed to listen to music actively whether I am reviewing or not! Music is still enjoyable, but I can no longer let it wash over me. I realise that this is what makes me, I hope (though it is for others to say), a good reviewer, so I can’t really complain, but it has meant that my life is no longer as full of music as it was, at least for the moment.
I have put this short post down as something of an aside, but I hope it might explain a couple of things and be of interest to one or two of you. Things will improve and I have no doubt I will be back reviewing soon. In the meantime, here is a song that is in my head thanks to the current Lloyd’s Bank advert. It’s a track that pretty much passed me by when it was released, but I absolutely love it. Yes, I sit and analyse the music, lyrics and vocals, but it’s the first song in a while that has transported me to that place where all good music takes you. It’s definitely a step in the right direction.
On Saturday March 18, 2023 I went to the Harry Potter Studios at Leavesden near Watford. There were eight of us on the trip with my Mother being the oldest and my daughter’s best friend being the youngest. As all of us were adults – well age wise anyway as I am just a big kid at heart! – it was an interesting dynamic. We last went to the studios ten years ago, so there were definitely a lot of new exhibits, but more of those later!
Tickets, getting there and getting in
I bought the tickets over 6 months ago for a 12:30 entry time. They were £50 each for adults which I felt was likely to be good value, although obviously £400 is a lot to spend in one go. Given the fact that I hadn’t been with the family for a decade I thought it was fair enough. On a normal day we would have gone by train to avoid a 3 – 4 hour round trip drive, but due to the train strike it was two cars between the eight of us. The signs from Junction 20 of the M25 are very easy to follow, and your ticket price includes free car parking, so it’s a really good option if you are driving. If you go by train there is a shuttle bus from the station. The entry process is very straightforward even with the obligatory security check. When my wife’s bag was checked my camera was inside in it’s case – I wanted the photos to be as good as they possibly could be – and a rather bemused looking security guy checked to make sure it was a camera in there! Naturally, these days, very few people take pictures on anything other than their phones, but the quality I got was well worth the complications of going through the download process on my social media!
Tip Number One – Ask someone in your party to bring a good quality camera if they can, as well as a phone.
The start of the tour
There were definitely more people in our timed half hour entry than there had been a decade ago, as you might expect, but there was never the feeling that you were in a crush because of the way that different groups went into the first room of the tour in smaller cohorts. The guide in charge of the first part was very bubbly, but had the unenviable task of trying to get her largely British crowd whooping and hollering! The introduction to the tour from the three main actors, Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, was the same one they used 10 years ago but still a good start. The first set you go in to is the Great Hall. Now, I was quite disappointed and underwhelmed. Why? Well, the last time I had been was December 2012 with the Great Hall dressed up for Christmas, but on our second visit it was set up for OWL and NEWT exams, which was never going to show the set off to equal effect. If it had been our first visit though, I think we would have been suitably awed by our first view of such a massive room.
Tip Number Two – The Great Hall looks different at different times of the year with Hogwarts at Christmas being the set with the biggest ‘Wow’ factor between November and January.
My Highlights
When I looked at the new attractions before I went I was really looking forward to the Hogwarts Express. Well, that more than lived up to expectations. I didn’t know where it was on the tour so I actually said ‘Wow!!’ when I walked onto the set. It is an incredible sight, seeing the full size engine with the carriages behind, and the fact that you can board the train and walk through the corridor looking at the compartments is a great bonus. There were 8 compartments, one for each film, with props to bring back loads of memories. There is a bit of a queue, but it only took about 15 minutes before we were on the train which is testament to the Studio Tour’s organisation.
Tip Number Three – Look at the props on the train very closely as they are absolutely fascinating. My favourite props were the Quidditch programmes and the copies of The Quibbler.
The other literal ‘Wow’ moment was one I wasn’t expecting. When I walked into Gringotts Bank I was absolutely blown away by the scale, the beauty and the marvellous details. It is a superb set that will be much more of a focus for me next time I watch the films.
Behind the Scenes Demonstrations and Insights
This is something that has improved in leaps and bounds in the last decade. The behind the scenes demonstrations and videos are simply brilliant and they enhance the magic in many ways as you learn just how much imagination and work went in to creating the scenes. There are a number throughout the tour, but I want to pick out two highlights. The first is the ‘walk through’ video that demonstrates the amazing attention to detail and huge work that goes into creating the goblin masks. It is in the second half of the tour, so if your children (or adult fans) are tired or overhyped (!) you may find it difficult to corral them but those children who were watching the videos were just as fascinated as I was. The other video you simply must watch was the explanation of the scene in the Lestrange vault in the final film. In itself, I found that to be just as big a ‘Wow’ moment as the massive sets. The combination of real effects and CGI was mind-boggling.
Food and Drink
I am famously vocal about food and drink at the different places I go to, complaining about price, taste, quantity, quality – you name it! My family turn a deaf ear to me and quite rightly. However, the Harry Potter Studios get a very rare thumbs up from me. Our car arrived a bit earlier than the rest of the party so four of us made our way to the Chocolate Frog Cafe. The Hot Chocolate there was the best I’ve tasted in ages, although it was perhaps a little smaller than expected. The prices on blance, however, are pretty fair for a monopoly provider!
Our other food and drink stop was halfway through the tour in The Backlot Cafe. My son and I headed for the Butterbeer section where there was a short queue, because I wanted the souvenir sundae dish and he wanted the souvenir mini-tankard that were included in the price of £6.95 for the ice cream and the drink respectively. When we got our respective plastic containers we were both expecting to give the contents to someone else remembering the horribly sweet concoctions of ten years ago. Instead we both finished the contents ourselves, since someone with an idea of how to develop the ingredients for anyone who doesn’t spend their lives downing neat Golden Syrup! The ice cream was like a sweet but not overpowering version of Cornish ice cream that I loved. My family who were happier to push the boat out for their lunches (!) were all very happy with their food. The hot food portions are hearty enough to get you through the second half of the tour and beyond.
Tip Number Four – Perhaps budget for at least £10 a head for food and drink at the halfway point as you’ll need it by then, but you do get your money’s worth.
The Gift Shop
Now take it from me, this is a very dangerous place for you and your bank card to enter! The sheer volume of appealing souvenirs throughout the store is just incredible, and the quality of everything is way better than you would expect from pretty much all comparable shops in other attractions. I will get to my (nearly) fool proof tip soon, but suffice to say it is a gift shop that will turn even the most miserly Scrooge into Uncle Ebenezer after he has met the Three Spirits! With young children in tow this will be a shop that will require a huge amount of parental negotiation! Even for adults the sheer amount of choice is almost overwhelming. I spent somewhere near £100 on various items for myself and others and could very easily have doubled that without preparation. What preparation did I do? Read on.
Tip Number Five – Take the time to walk through the gift shop before your tour starts, as that will give you the opportunity to pinpoint the favourite items, leading to less chance of a huge blowout at the end of the tour when you and your children may well be over-excited!
Final Thoughts
This attraction is a must see for all Harry Potter fans, and may well convert those yet to fall under its magic spell. It isn’t an inexpensive place to visit, but you get full value (and more) for every penny you spend.
Today, it’s the completely over the top costumes and music of the 1970s, brought to you by Glam Rock. Now, the whole point about these blog posts is the honesty about what I really listened to. I am happy to admit to boybands as I did in the last post in this series, so there is nothing I am going to hide from. Accordingly, I will address the foil covered elephant in the room before going on to my five choices. As a child, like so many others, I was a massive Gary Glitter fan, and he knew how to put a song together that would appeal to a huge audience. With songs like Leader of the Gang, Always Yours and Oh Yes, You’re Beautiful he made a massive impact on music and popular culture. His crimes are clearly heinous and have justifiably made him a musical pariah, but it is only right that I acknowledge his central role in my childhood music development.
I have decided to go chronologically on this journey, so our first stop is in 1973 which was the real start of glam rock for me. At the start of that year of three day weeks and strikes, The Sweet who had a hard rocking style on their albums put that together with the trappings of glam rock. Their image was far tougher than later glam rock icons, which sometimes led to them being described as resembling a group of ‘brickies’ and put them in the same type of category as Slade. However, their bassist Steve Priest decided that he wanted to experiment with a more androgynous look and make-up, and one of the most iconic and controversial musicians of the era came into the public eye. With eye shadow, glitter and outrageous costumes, including an incredibly ill advised (even by the standard of the 70s!) military uniform complete with Hitler moustache and swastika, he was prepared to do anything to get The Sweet talked about. Like Dave Hill of Slade, he pretty much always succeeded. On occasions this overshadowed quite what a brilliant band they were. The first glam classic that made the crossover into the playground was their million selling classic that stayed at Number 1 for 5 weeks. It was, of course, Blockbuster.
1973 was also unquestionably the high point of the magnificent Slade with their incredibly catchy and full blooded rock songs. Noddy Holder had one of rock’s great voices and was actually offered lead singer duties by AC/DC in 1980 after the untimely death of Bon Scott. He decided to stay with his Wolverhampton bandmates and never regretted it, but it is beyond question that he would have absolutely smashed it with the Aussie heavy rock icons. Anyway, 1973 was Slade’s Annus Mirabilis with three tracks that went straight in at Number 1, Cum On Feel The Noize, Sqweeze Me Pleeze Me and, of course, Merry Xmas Everybody. So which of those makes my list? None of them! My choice for the first glam rock singalong that I took to my heart is their third release of the year which stalled at Number 2. It was a chorus made for belting out in the playground, the overlooked but rather brilliant My Friend Stan from October 1973.
The rather lovely New Seekers song, You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me interrupted a run of stone cold glam rock classics that started with Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody, and featured a simply outstanding trio of hits from the first two months which all earn a place in place in my personal countdown. The first of these featured a group from Carshalton who had the seemingly obligatory publicity savvy musician. The band was Mud and the musician was guitarist was Rob Davis whose earrings became a familiar feature of Mud’s Top of the Pops appearances. 1974 saw them at their height, finishing the year with the Christmas Number 1, Lonely This Christmas, but no other song, or dance routine matched the impact of the insanely catchy Tiger Feet. Performances of the song saw the group wearing tiger slippers and being joined by their roadies, whose dance was definitely part of the appeal. It was a dance that was copied, usually badly, in classrooms and playgrounds and along with the brilliant singalong chorus it was an absolute favourite for the whole of 74 and indeed beyond.
For the most part, glam rock was an all male preserve, as indeed most rock music was at the time. However, one artist set the pulses of boys and men racing in her all leather jumpsuit. Suzi Quatro had bags of attitude and the air of a prize fighter, unsurprisingly given the sexism she faced. Against the odds, however, she became the first lady of glam rock and is still playing to adoring audiences five decades later. Her fourth hit was her second Number 1 and her signature track. Devil Gate Drive was a song that just exploded out of the speakers and caught you in a wave of sound. There was no defence against such a great record from such an iconic artist. Her bass playing was urgent and pounded through all her songs. If you’ve never heard it before you’re in for a treat, and if you have, ‘Let’s do it one more time for Suzi’!
The final glam icon was a leather clad 60s rocker called Shane Fenton. Not ringing a bell? Well perhaps his alter ego with huge rings on his gloved hands and tons of moody attitude might be more familiar to you. He went by the name of Alvin Stardust and, for a year or so, he was at the forefront of many minds with his stage presence and his, sometimes unsettling, songs. The one I have fondest memories of was released in February 1974, the follow up to My Coo Ca Choo, his first record as Alvin Stardust which reached Number 2 and spent an amazing 11 weeks in the Top 10. Jealous Mind was his only Number 1, but he was to visit the Top 10 again on a number of occasions with Pretend in 1981 reaching Number 4 and I Feel Like Buddy Holly and I Won’t Run Away both getting to Number 7 in 1987. So, check out a sometimes forgotten giant of glam when you have a chance. Jealous Mind showcases his vice perhaps better than any other song, a mix of Elvis like sections and a sudden skip up the octaves which gave his records their unique character.
I hope you enjoyed this tour through some of the highlights of glam rock. See you next time!
When you sit down to a new book, especially an autobiography of someone whose public persona you are familiar with, you have pre-set ideas of what the subject will be like. Accordingly, I sat down with Baroness Floella Benjamin’s autobiography expecting a funny and warm read. Now I certainly got those emotions in places, but I got other emotions I definitely wasn’t expecting, like anger, shock, disbelief and passages that affected me so deeply that I had to put the book down to compose myself before I was able to carry on. In every way, this autobiography gave me deeper feelings than I had ever felt from any other life story. Is that because of Play School, Play Away and her other appearances during my later childhood? Well, that’s why I put the book on my Christmas list, but no not really. I got these feelings because of the power of the writing and the absolute honesty Floella put into every line. It is no exaggeration to say that I have never been so moved by any other book in years.
The Story
Floella’s early years on the island of Trinidad were days of fun and laughter with her beloved Marmie and Dardie and her five siblings. When her parents moved to Britain, leaving the four older children in the care of family and friends, what had been idyllic became a nightmare. She eventually moved to England to join her parents and settled in to her new life with positive expectations and a heart full of love for those around her. This was met with anger, racism and daily discrimination from neighbours, fellow pupils at school, racist gangs and the police. When you read how this young girl and her family were treated it makes you burn with anger, but from her adult perspective Floella shows the most incredible forgiveness to those who treated her so appallingly. It wasn’t always that way, as she admits, and unsurprisingly so.
That Question
The title reflects the question that Floella and every other non-white person gets asked when they are in a place where they aren’t expected to be. It’s a question that has dogged her throughout her life in England, and it hasn’t been asked only by people you might be expecting, but also by the ‘great and the good’ of politics, media and even the august members of the House of Lords itself. The way that Floella brings it to life and its horrible effect on her and many many others, makes what can, too often, be an abstract idea for those who have never been affected by racism and the questioning of your very self, deeply and shockingly powerful.
Love and Loss
The whole autobiography is full of love. Love for her parents, her siblings, husband Keith, her children, her Play School babies, her students and her fellow actors and performers. The fact that her love is so present at all times is the reason why people have loved her in return all through her life and career. Her overwhelming goodness and compassion is at the centre of this book, and it is this that makes the losses that she faces so upsetting. On a number of occasions in this book my eyes filled with tears and I had to put the book down to process what I had just read.
Final Thoughts
Baroness Benjamin of Beckenham, to give her her full title is quite simply one of the most important figures in this country. Her work for children, charities and equality has been indefatigable for half a century and more. She has given herself fully to everyone who has needed her help throughout her life and she is incredibly inspiring. She is full of Consideration, Contentment and Contentment. If you only read one autobiography this year you must make it this one.
Those of you who follow me on twitter or read my blogs will know that I do not care about fashion or ‘credibility’ when it comes to my music choices. If I like something I like something and that’s that. I will review and champion music of any genre. That wasn’t always the case when I was a child and a teenager, because saying you liked the ‘wrong’ band could be socially disastrous! I got a huge amount of stick for my abiding affection for Showaddywaddy, which I didn’t hide, so with groups or artists that were even more socially unacceptable for a boy, I learnt to keep things very quiet. From quite early on, I had a huge affection for the music of artists whose pictures were to be found in Jackie or, occasionally, Look-In. I am talking about the boybands and teen heart throbs that girls used to become obsessed by. If there had been the opportunity to join that obsession I would have done, but that area of fandom was clearly marked as out of bounds for boys! Well, many years later I can finally give full vent to my early music loves and not care whether I am being judged or not!
The Osmonds were a family of talented performers from the United States, whose wholesome appearance and polished ballad singing gave them the key to the hearts of girls across the world. I was a fan of their later songs, especially Love Me For A Reason, but their first hit couldn’t have been more different. It was a loud and uncompromising song of environmental activism that was, I realised in retrospect, one of the chief reasons for my eventual love of rock and metal. In 1972, however, it was an atypical choice of chart entry for me to become excited by, with glam very much on the periphery for me until the following year. When you listen to Crazy Horses, it is the sound of five young men being let off the leash and given creative control, a creative control they were not allowed to exercise again. When I went to see The Osmonds Musical in the theatre last year, which I thoroughly recommend, this was the first song in their encore. Even 50 years on, it raised the roof and pointed to a very different direction for these teen heart throbs to explore if only they had been allowed to.
Moving on to the other huge teen favourites of the decade, we find ourselves draped in tartan as a group of good looking – I was reliably informed by girls I chatted to! – Scottish performers called the Bay City Rollers dominated the conversation of girls from primary school upwards. I was an early fan of theirs, although I only admitted that to girls I could trust not to say anything, from Shang A Lang onwards. That was the name of their own show on ITV which I never missed, because they would have lots of other bands and artists on who I enjoyed listening to. I can’t have been the only boy to fall under their spell either, as worldwide sales of 120 million records would be hard to do on a narrow fanbase of the type they were supposed to appeal to. They were actually an influence on early punk rock in the US – no hear me out! Saturday Night was a US chart topper, originally released in 1973, but sinking without trace everywhere, that featured a chanted chorus with the letters Saturday being shouted out. It was re-released in the US at the end of 1975 before hitting the top in January 1976. The Ramones heard this track and decided to use a similar idea for their first hit, Blitzkrieg Bop. Pop on to YouTube if you don’t believe me, but the similarities are clear, and confirmed by The Ramones themselves. My favourite Rollers track hit the top of the charts in the UK earlier that year. No, it wasn’t Bye Bye Baby, much though I liked the song. It was the follow-up, the frankly quite brilliant Give A Little Love, sung superbly by the excellent Les McKeown and backed up by some top notch musical support from the rest of the band. It remains to this day one of my favourite ballads and the opening lines are simply lovely.
Now, the next entry on my 70s heart throbs list had a much more ambivalent position, because he was a male singer who had a huge appreciative following of male fans as well as female fans. However, those fans were not looking for the same thing in their idol. The artist in question was one of the most famous actors of the time, and a fixture of Saturday night television, but he also wanted to return to his early singing career. The decision of David Soul, aka Ken Hutchinson of legendary police show Starsky and Hutch, to release a series of gorgeous ballads came out of the blue because the only ‘singing’ policeman we had come across previously was Telly Savalas, who played Theo Kojak. His frankly terrible rendition of If was notable for the fact that he spoke all the way through it, because he could not hit a single note! Honestly, he made Lee Marvin, whose tuneless growling version of Wanderin’ Star from the musical Paint Your Wagon was a similarly inexplicable Number 1, sound good! (Both tracks are on YouTube but if you decide to look for them, on your own head be it!) David Soul, by contrast was genuinely talented. His early gimmick was to sing in a ski mask on US TV as The Covered Man because he wanted to be judged on his voice not his looks. When he revisited his music career he did so with the song Don’t Give Up On Us which charted on the week before Christmas 1976 and sped to Number 1 in January where it stayed for four weeks. It was the first of a trio of hits in 1977 with Going In With My Eyes Open making Number 2 and Silver Lady getting to Number 1. A true singing talent he may have been, but his music was seen by most boys as something to be avoided at all costs, because ballads were for girls! Following Starsky and Hutch Soul returned to his career as a regular guest star in US shows before becoming a regular on the West End stage in shows like Blood Brothers. Here is that first hit, the gorgeous Don’t Give Up On Us.
The 1970s came and went, and with it, arguably, the high point of the boy band. Certainly, it was a long time before any other band managed to work its way into the affections of the, largely, female record buying public. The 90s saw that band recreate Osmondmania and Rollermania as five young men grew up on camera from teens who were a little rough round the edges to a polished and supremely successful chart topping act. I refer of course to Take That, who were big enough in 1995 to feature on collectable boxes of cereal! The first track of theirs that made me sit up and take notice was their excellent cover of Could It Be Magic with a first lead vocal for a young Robbie Williams. After that, it was the lovely ballad Babe, which would have been the 1993 Christmas Number 1 if it wasn’t for Mr Blobby! In 1995, after a run of chart toppers, they produced a song that even their detractors had to grudgingly admit was ‘pretty good’. For me, it was perhaps the best single of the entire decade. From the first few bars of Back For Good, it was clear that this was something incredibly special. Gary Barlow’s vocals were on typically good form, but it was the tune that set this track apart. As a ballad, it is absolutely from the top drawer and stands comparison with any of the other great love songs across pop music history. After the inevitable break-up, Robbie Williams matched it with his own classic Angels, and the reformed ‘man band’ as they called themselves pretty much matched it a decade later with the outstanding Rule The World. It’s a trio of tracks that all feature highly in my all time favourites, and it’s incredibly difficult to choose the best of the three, so I’m not going to!
The 1990s finished with one more boyband who became, in chart terms at least, the most successful of all. Westlife were managed by boyband veteran Ronan Keating of Boyzone, and they exploded on to the scene in the era of SMTV Live and CD:UK where Top of the Pops was on its way down and Ant and Dec were on their way up. For the second half of 1999 they seemed to be on Saturday morning television every single week. Their first single, Swear It Again went straight in at Number 1, as did the next 6 releases! There were four chart toppers between May 1999 and December 1999, but it was their third that captured my imagination. The sublime Flying Without Wings is, to this day, one of the songs that will make me stop what I’m doing and just listen. As with all boybands, there was a lead singer, Shane Filan, but in Flying Without Wings, every member of the group took lead vocal duties, and the effect was to give Westlife a unity that a lot of their predecessors didn’t have.
So, there you have it. I am a fan of teen heart throbs, always have been, always will be. I hope that the choices above have proved that each one had songs that stand comparison with any music by any artist you care to mention. You just need to listen without prejudice.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 